Blurry
by pinkpeaches
Summary: Inspired by preview for "Page 47"


Okay, well I have absolutely NO clue where this came from…I was studying for an upcoming test the Monday after "The Coup" aired and I was hit with this one when I accidentally fell asleep in class (oops: D). I have no proof whatsoever that this will happen…and although I love Bradley Cooper this is a shipper fic with a capital S! So please just read, review and tell me what you thought!

~ PG

~ All and any feed back is craved and appreciated: little_pink_monkeys64@hotmail.com or purtyinpink17@yahoo.com

~ If I owned them, would I really be writing this?

Blurry

By: Lulu

"The heat in LA can be such a bitch," a smiling teenager blurted into the glittering scarlet cell phone pressed to her ear. Vaughn grinned to himself, chuckling inwardly at the girl in the passenger seat of the red convertible to his left. He'd been stuck at this red light for the past 10 minutes, and he was starting to miss the snowy winters in France. True, winter had almost dwindled away, but spring heat hit Los Angeles with full force, abruptly sweeping away the abnormal cold that possessed all within the city that winter.

He had loosened his tie the moment he started the engine of his forest green SUV, lazily pushing the long sleeves of his white dress shirt up into the crooks of his elbows. He started the drive down to the warehouse, and was now stuck at a red light near Wilshire. 

The sweltering heat and humidity had thrown him into a thick stupor. In the office, his nice, _cool, air conditioned_ office, with his gold coin twirling in and out of his strong fingers, he knew exactly what he was going to say, exactly what he was going to do. The words were chosen and waiting anxiously, lined up at the tip of his tongue ready to be said. But the moment after he made the call to 'Joey's Pizza' that he was hit with a wave of humid air that knocked him almost senseless. He felt completely lethargic, wanting nothing more than to slump into the worn corners of his couch and watch some hockey.

Or maybe a baseball game.

But now he was going to her. Not that he minded. But the news he had, what he was about to tell her, would steal the glitter out of the pools of dark chocolate that melted into her irises. He could almost see her smile fall, almost envision her dimples disappear. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

The traffic lurched forward with a slow viscosity, moving him closer and closer. To the warehouse. To the moment. To her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The call was totally, utterly, and completely unexpected. The air conditioning at Credit Dauphine had broken and she had been literally drenched in sweat the moment she stepped inside. Passing through the infrared security she cringed as the heat hit her arms, shivering with the temporary cold that preceded a suffocating humidity.

It wasn't bad enough that the AC was broken.

Someone messing with the thermostat had accidentally moved it to heat.

And now it wouldn't go back.

She entered the office to find all the employees slowly filtering out, packing their things. Making her way to the conference room, she had been turning away by a comatose Arvin Sloane, immobilized by the heat. An uncharacteristic whim of kindness had moved him to send everyone home for the day, until the repairmen could fix their problem.

Or maybe it was the fact that he could barely go ten minutes without changing a shirt.

She had no idea what motivated him to take a day off, but she certainly wasn't the one to complain. The moment she walked through the door she stripped down and slipped into the coldest bath humanly possible.

She sunk low into the coconut scented bubbles, closing her eyes and sighed with contempt. She had popped in a collection of the CDs that she had no time to listen to, blowing a bubble off of her nose as Sarah MacLachlan's "Angel" reached her ears. [AN: hey, what can I say? Support the cause…go read Angel if you haven't!] She sighed once more, this time her released breath full of longing towards a certain someone.

Her angel.

And as if on cue, the phone rang.

"Joey's Pizza?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He was there before her. His long, lean, built figure paced back and forth, radiating an irritation that could only have been caused by heat.

Of course he was there before her. He _always_ was.

She had jumped out of the tub with the end of their non-existent conversation, running a brush through her hair after slipping into a knee-length skirt and a linen quarter length blouse. In the car she had wondering what the CIA had had a counter mission for, seeing as she had yet to be assigned to one. 

Unless, it was the Cairo episode all over again.

But she knew it wasn't. 

It couldn't have been.

There was something in his footwork. Something in the way that his steps were perfectly aligned, the way he turned, the way his shoes retraced their previously cut grooves. Something that radiated out of his pores with the heat that leaked out of him, as she was sure it did to her as well. 

Something was wrong.

And it wasn't good.

__

Could she know? He thought to himself as the clicking of her steps slowly reached his ears. He was slightly calmed by her all knowing footsteps, soothed by the gentle vibrations her heels created as she neared him. There was something in her step that told him she knew something was wrong. Something was different.

"Good to see you haven't melted yet," her curt voice replied playfully. He spun to see her approaching him, standing before him with smiling eyes. He smiled softly, stifling a sigh.

"Just about," he muttered, his eyes dancing around hers.

" So what's up? Have you developed something that can read Sloane's mind and predict my missions, or do they take pleasure in calling me in for no reason?"

A silence thicker than molasses spread itself through them.

"How have you been?" 

"What?" she blurted, instantly regretting it. It had been the longest sentence he uttered for the eternity they had stood there, together, and she was questioning it?

"How have you been?"

He repeated his question again, concerned etched deep into the grooves of his face, laced in the deep pools of green that had settled in his eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" she replied bluntly, a frown burrowing into her forehead. His expression softened, and he sighed.

She had gone from worried, to exasperated, to just plain annoyed. What the hell were they putting in their coffee over at Langley, anyway? She'd never known him to act the way he was now, distant, enigmatic. 

But then something else came to mind.

And suddenly she was scared.

Unconsciously she moved closer to him, placing her palm flat on the crook of his arm. Her eyes peered up at him large, full, and needy. Scared. 

"What's wrong?" She repeated, this time her tone soft, gentle. 

Another sigh.

"Sydney, we need to talk."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The look on her face was something he hadn't been prepared for. It was something he'd never forget. The look in her eyes when the words began to jumble out of his mouth changed from fear to the plain, unexpected shock. Her eyes fixated themselves on the chain link fence in the background, their irises lightening in color as an immaculate glaze settled, forming an odd sort of vulnerable shield.

Her hand remained on his arm as she pulled him backwards; closer and closer to the concrete wall, never wavering as she slowly sunk into the chair that awaited. She looked up at him, with that same look present, the one she plastered on before he gave her the news that would ruin her day.

Maybe even her year.

She shut her eyes, pressing her lips together so tight that they literally disappeared into a thin white line. Her grip on his elbow slowly became softer, until it became so faint that he could barely notice that it was still there. He'd never seen her this scared, this shocked, spare only one encounter. He'd never seen _anyone_ look the way she did.

Wait a minute. He had.

His mother. 

In a matter of seconds he was launched back into memories long buried. Memories of a life left behind with his innocence. He'd seen things no child his age should have, and done things that most teenagers complained about.

What he remembered most was the look in her eyes.

That day had been perfect. It was the middle of May, and the sun stuck its head out, ending the long days of rain that had preceded it. Finally they were free to be outside, to run and roam like the children that they were. He had been playing catch with his sister Jackie using the two mitts their father had bought them to compensate for his many unexplained absences when the stark black car pulled into their driveway. They thought it was him, that William Vaughn was actually home early.

It was with these sentiments that sent them tearing into the house, jumping over the toys scattered about by the youngest addition to the Vaughn family, baby Charlotte, scrambling to reach their father first.

But they weren't met with those bright green eyes that belonged to the man that they loved so much. 

The only thing they saw was the look of grief and shock that had settled into the magnificent gray of Isabella Vaughn as she rocked her youngest daughter back and forth in her arms, the tears silently streaming down her face.

The look in Sydney's eyes was the same as the one he had seen nearly twenty years before. The layer of salty tears had grown, pounding against its fragile boundary to be set free. His vision began to swirl as he watched their pattern, slightly losing himself in their watery chestnut depths.

He was drowning in them.

But he needed to keep himself floating.

He needed to be strong.

For the both of them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

__

Did he just fucking say what I thought he said? She asked herself cautiously, not daring to catch his gaze. She glanced towards the chain link fence as he reiterated the words previously spoken. At first she thought it was just a ridiculously sick and twisted practical joke, anything to keep the double agent of her toes. But as she realized that he kept avoiding her eyes, she knew it was true.

He wasn't lying.

Will Tippin was dead.

They had found his car in the Hollywood foothills, nestled in the trees off of the side of the road that led to the Griffith Observatory, a place that had just served as the location for their secret rendezvous. The driver's seat, dashboard and windshield had been drenched in the blood that was sampled and identified as his. Fragments of a corpse were found just a mile off. 

That, of course, was still being studied until it could be absolutely confirmed as being his.

And it got worse.

He had known about SD-6.

Her mind refused to believe him. When he produced a familiar yellow flower, her eyes popped. The bug.

And then she knew.

Then she believed.

Slowly a thin layer of water began to glaze over her eyes. Her 20/15 vision began to blur as she lightened her grip on his arm, slowly losing control of her already unsteady nerves. With the lightest of pressure she led him backwards, her eyes still blank and sullen until she plopped into the chair nestled again the stone concrete of the back wall. She found herself slowly fighting the urge to burst into tears. 

Even though he'd already seen her cry.

It was his voice that cut through her haze.

"Syd…I-" he stuttered, the green in his eyes soft, careful, comforting. Blurred.

She slowly rose before him, clasping her hand over her mouth in a meek attempt to stifle the sob that loudly sounded itself. The damn broke and her tears flooded forward, streaking down her face, each drop tracing the path of its predecessor. 

She had lost back of how much time went by until she felt slightly warmer. She forgotten how long she stood there, in tears, a rare vulnerable wreck, wrapped soundly in the arms of a certain Agent Michael Vaughn. His strong arms encompassed her tightly, providing the comfort she knew she could go no where else for. His thumbs traced small circles in her back as his soothing voice did its best to shush her sobs, which began to grow louder and more violent with each coming moment. She shook gently as she let loose everything.

It was when her tears had stopped that she realized how right it felt to be in his arms.

They stayed that way, wrapped in a tight embrace. Sydney rested her ear flat on his chest, listening intently to the steady beating of his heart.

Her vision cleared.

The world was no longer blurry.

She knew the next few days would be hard. Pretending she knew nothing, feigning the friendly concern when Will failed to invite himself over for days at a time. She knew sooner or later that the agency would send office word to them through the police, and she would no longer keep up the charade. Together with Francie and Amy they would mourn.

"You okay?" he whispered softly, his voice ringing as his lips lingered by her ear.

She nodded gently, offering him a small, but genuine smile.

She knew it wouldn't be enough for him. She knew that he'd call her more often, sneak in more meetings. 

And she smiled.

It was the first time she was in his arms.

But it wouldn't be the last.

--

okay, yes, I know…I could possibly continue after I post my Angel update…please let your voice be heard…REVIEW


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